1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector that couples a printed circuit board to the spin motor and actuator arm assembly of a hard disk drive.
2. Description of Related Art
Hard disk drives contain a transducer which can magnetize and sense the magnetic field of a rotating disk. The transducer is typically located at the end of an actuator arm. The actuator arm has a voice coil motor which moves the transducer across the surface of the disk.
Hard disk drives also contain a number of electronic circuits that control the operation of the drive. The electronic circuits are mounted onto a printed circuit board. The transducer is typically coupled to the printed circuit board by a flexible circuit board. The flexible circuit board has leads that are soldered to corresponding pads of the printed circuit board. Soldering leads increases the assembly time of the drive and the cost of each unit. The solder may also expose the disk to contaminants which may effect the operation of the drive. Additionally, the solder must be reflowed to repair the actuator arm, printed circuit board or any components on the circuit board. Reflowing the solder is both time consuming and again increases the possibility of contaminants being introduced to the drive. It would therefore be desirable to have a disk drive which couples an actuator arm assembly to a printed circuit board without hard wiring together the two members.